


happily ever after

by wormguts



Series: Tree Rings [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batman: A Death in the Family, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Denial, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Jason Todd's Death, Original Character(s), Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-24 15:16:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20708138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wormguts/pseuds/wormguts
Summary: Bruce buries his son.





	happily ever after

**Author's Note:**

> back at it again! i know i promised the next story would be the beginnings of romantic BruJay but cmonnnn who doesn't love some angst!

+++

The flower in his hands is well on its way to decomposition, but Bruce can’t seem to set it down. He spins it gently between callused fingers, counts the petals orbiting the drip of yellow in the center. 29. Two less than three minutes ago; they fluttered to the floor somewhere by his feet before he could care to catch them.

“Bruce."

29\. That’s 13 less than it’s supposed to have.

“Bruce, we need to talk.” Another kind, soothing hand finds his shoulder like too many before it. It’s warm through the cotton of his dress shirt. Heavy. “We need to... figure this out.”

He could smell her rich perfume long before she was brave enough to speak. Why she’s speaking at all, he can’t tell. There isn’t anything to say.

He mutters as much with an annoyed tug to one of the daisy’s petals. He watches it helicopter to the cold tile, _spinning, spinning,_ and smushes it under his dress shoe.

“We have to make arrangements,” she tries again, seating herself on the chair in front of his desk. It doesn't look right. 

“So make them.”

A sigh. A tired, strained puff of air that’s a hair’s breadth from impatient. “Bruce, be reasonable. Please. I understand this is hard, but you need to give me _something_ to work with. It’s an uphill battle. You need to try.” She gives him a pathetic little smile that he catches out of the corner of his eye. It makes his stomach lurch.

_An uphill battle to where_, he wonders. A better life? Because unless there’s a memory-eraser gun gift-wrapped in the other room, she can take her uphill battle and shove it up her ass.

Ah. It’s too early for this.

“There are some documents I need you to sign. The funeral arrangements...” Her other hand touches the desk. It’s all wrong. It isn’t her desk.

Bruce squints at the daisy. Now it’s lost another one. 28.

“Sooner than later would be preferred,” she says.

“Sure. Whatever.”

She peers over at his hands like she’s noticing them for the first time. She nods to the daisy. “What’s that?”

Bruce’s eyes haven’t left the flower once since she sauntered into his office and drank up all the oxygen, drained the atmosphere, ate up the last strands of the fading sunset like an ugly storm cloud. He doesn’t need to look at her to know the expression on her face. He doesn’t have to guess where this conversation’s going.

But who cares. The daisy is drooping. It’ll probably be completely dried up come tomorrow. Yet it’s holding on, somehow. 28 petals and counting. The little guy’s digging its heels in and waiting out the storm with him. He doesn’t have an umbrella, but that’s okay. He never minded the rain before.

“We found this.” From the folds of her coat, she produces a manila envelope. The front reads _Bruce_ in childish chicken-scratch. Too familiar. He feels his stomach make its way up his esophagus.

He turns away. “I don’t need that. I don’t need that _now_.” _Tug, tug, tug_ at the daisy.

"Dick had it sent over from Blüdhaven,” she replies bluntly, directly, as though she’s discussing Super Bowl results. “He found it and insisted I give it to you.”

He inhales a calming breath through his nose, letting his eyes fall closed. It’s dark behind his eyelids. Safe. He doesn’t have to see anything he doesn’t want to. 

“Bruce. Please take the letter.”

His skin feels like plastic, his face a lump of wax. It’s like someone tied weights to his lungs, his heart, and then let them go. They’re dragging there behind him, getting caught around corners, _tugging, tugging, tugging,_ hitting the backs of his heels. His chest hurts. It _hurts_.

Jason would be ashamed of him.

The daisy’s stem snaps between his fingers.

He leaves Amanda sitting there, lips a hard, disapproving line. She should’ve never opened her mouth.

He leaves the daisy, too. He sets it down on the empty urn by the window and slams the door shut behind him.

* * *

“Excuse me, I-- Would you like to borrow my umbrella?”

A woman all but materializes beside Bruce. She’s stopped a few feet from where he’s obviously fuming on a park bench, a worn purse in one hand and toddler hanging off the other.

“I’ll be fine, thank you,” is Bruce’s reply. It’ll be okay. Alfred will be here soon to pick him up.

“Are you sure?” the woman presses. Her kid peeks out behind her legs, the rain splattering across her freckled cheeks. Bruce meets the little girl’s gaze. She blinks her big blue eyes up at him, and Bruce wants to cry.

“My time is coming,” Bruce’s lip wobbles. He watches as the woman takes him in. He must look pathetic. All squiggly, wet lines. A man caught between wanting to live and wanting to die. Except he isn’t a man anymore. He's just an idea. Billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. Batman. He's sitting in the rain letting his 3,000 dollar suit get ruined. He's _pathetic_.

“Are you okay? Do you want me to call someone?” the woman now fumbles with her bag, her child, _and_ her umbrella, all the while slipping her phone from her back pocket.

“I’ll be fine,” he repeats, just as Alfred pulls up. He can tell the woman doesn’t believe him, wants to say something but is caught on the precipice. He knows he isn’t fooling anyone. He knows he isn’t believable. He just wishes he, if no one else, could believe his own lies.

* * *

Alfred doesn't say anything on the ride back to the manor. He doesn't need to. By the time they reach the cold, empty, lonely old house, Bruce is a puddle in the foyer.

"I can't do this," he whispers, wishing the tears would come instead of sitting behind his eyes, stinging, hurting. Even his body has betrayed him.

Alfred picks him up off the ice-cold tile and wraps him in his arms. "You don't have to do it alone," he whispers back. "Never. I'm always here."

Finally, Bruce hurts.

The next day, he buries his son.

**Author's Note:**

> what do you think is in jason's letter to bruce?


End file.
